Caroline Stern and her boyfriend George Hess were waiting for their train at the Columbus Circle subway station just before midnight when a busker began playing music on steel drums and they decided to dance along.

The pair say the station was nearly empty, and they didn't see the harm in busting out a few impromptu moves. The 55-year-old dentist and her 54-year-old beau were in the middle of doing the Charleston when they were approached by two police officers who asked them what they were doing.

"We're dancing," she told the cops, "and they said, ‘You can't do that on the platform.'" The officers then asked the couple for ID, but Stern only had a credit card with her photo on it.

Hess, meanwhile, pulled out a camera to record the exchange. "And that's when they called backup," Stern said. Eight officers "came from out of nowhere," she recalled, and both were cuffed. They claim Hess was tackled to the ground.

Police charged the two with disorderly conduct for "impeding the flow of traffic," even though there were allegedly only three other people on the platform at the time.

All charges were ultimately dropped, but Stern and Hess remain incredulous. "If you are surrounded by good musicians, that's going to make you want to dance," Stern told the Post. "The musician who is playing is legal, but . . . we're illegal?"